I work
for an organization called Reach the World which shares my experiences studying
abroad with middle school students back home in the US. The classroom that I
liaise with is in Queens, New York and I participate in video conferences with
the students and write articles about my experiences. In a recent article I was
asked to explain some of the science around me in Cape Town which prompted me
to think about what an interesting place Cape Town is scientifically and I
wanted to share some of this in a blog post as well!
Science is all
around us and being in a different place makes me especially aware of it. My
favorite example of recognizing science around me concerns the ocean. At home I
live on an island which is entirely surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. In Cape
Town the cape has water around three sides; on one side is the Atlantic Ocean
and on the other side currents from the Indian Ocean flow. The ocean is full of
science-biology, chemistry, and physics.
What I think is
most interesting about the ocean is that science can be found at a very small
and very large level. The other day I was at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape
Town and they had an exhibit where you could look through a microscope to view
samples of ocean water. Some samples contained phytoplankton which live at the
surface of the ocean and absorb energy from the sun. The next sample contained
zooplankton which are slightly larger and they receive energy by eating the
phytoplankton. The last sample we viewed contained krill which are a large type
of zooplankton that look like tiny shrimp under the microscope.
Krill are some of
the world’s smallest animals but they feed some of the world’s largest. The
aquarium employee at the exhibit then showed us a piece of baleen. It stood
taller than me and was made of a hard black material; it was wide at the top
and then became gradually thinner towards the bottom. Along the sides were thin
wiry hairs that krill become stuck in. Baleen belongs to whales like the
Humpback or the Wright Whale. I saw one piece of what lines the mouths of
whales where our teeth would be. They do not use their baleen as teeth but as giant
filters. When a baleen whale swoops through the ocean water rushes through the
baleen and the krill become entangled in the hairs of the baleen. This is how
the whale gets the nutrients that it needs to support its massive body.
Looking closely at
a sample of ocean water reveals that much of what we think is just water is
actually alive! Because we are looking at living organisms this is the study of
biology. If we were to look at the chemical makeup of the water and what allows
organisms to live in it we would be studying the chemistry of the water. Now we
have looked at the ocean microscopically but if we look macroscopically,
referring the comprehensive ocean system, we can learn different things.
The gravitational
pull of the moon determines the tides which along with currents keep the oceans
churning and sustainable for life. South Africa has a unique current situation
as it sits between two oceans; the Atlantic and the Indian. The Atlantic
currents flow on one side of the cape bringing cold water and cold water sea
animals and vegetation along with them while the Indian Ocean currents flow on
the other side bringing warm tropical water and animals and plants of that
ecosystem.
It is a strange
phenomenon that on one side of the peninsula you could find completely
different marine life than the other. The Indian Ocean hosts more tropical fish
and sea creatures more adapted to warmer temperatures while the Atlantic side
holds sea creatures that are more comfortable in colder conditions. Currents occur for a variety of reasons one,
similar to tides, is gravity but temperature and density, how much of a liquid
occupies a certain area, also play an important role. Temperature plays a big
factor with these currents because of the stark change that comes where these
two different oceans collide.
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